Sump?

[gino123456]

Hi guys just wondering.... with a sump what do u guys use in case of a power failure or black out, with the water sucking back into the sump and draining the tank.

I was thinking of a non return valve ( one way valve ). What do u think or what do u guys use

[Josh]

Hey gino

There is a heap of info on here about how sumps work. There aren't many of us that use a siphon on our sumps, but prefer to use some sort of overflow system being a weir, hole drill at water level or a overflow box. All these things require water to be being pumped into the before they will work.

Josh

[Willo]

Hey Gino,

I have it so the return pipe is at the top of the tank, so only a centimeter or so is returned to the sump. I've simulated a power outage (read turned power off), and ensured it didn't overflow.

Someone also suggested to me drilling a hole towards the top of the piping, just below water surface, so it prevents the syphon effect, but i never needed to do this.

HTH,

Tony

[BaZ]

It doesn't really matter how you set it all up, as long as your sump is big enough to handle any overflow after the power goes off.

Perhaps you'd be better off telling us about the setup you are planning so we can see why you are worried about the tank draining

[moldyform]

Drill the tank and put a venturi on the top of the siphon tube, a few cms below the water line.

Venturi will stop the siphon during power out and the drilled whole will cator for the absence of the siphon when power returns.

Cheers

[gino123456]

At the moment i have a three tier set up on top i have a 3ft and 2ft tanks underneath i have a 6fter and on the bottom is a 5fter....

Now the 2ft tank has fry in it with a sponge filter running the 3 fter has been drilled and runs into the bottom 5fter.

At the moment im using a small power head to fill up the sump with a pump pumping water back to the top tank.

Now if the power goes out isnt the water going to overflow or fill my sump which is a 2ft tank ?/?

[BaZ]

And how is the water getting to/from the 6ft tank?

Have you researched this idea much? There's heaps of info in previous discussions in this forum which should show you how to set up a sump system that won't give you any grief.

[gino123456]

The 6fter has fry in in and has sponge filters in each section as it is divided

[CThompson]

Gino,

You’re not giving clear enough information to understand how you have set it up. You need to describe simply so the readers don't get a headache trying to understand. If it is too difficult to understand, you likely won't get the help you wanted. Take the time to ask your question so further questions do not need to be asked.

Basically turn the power off, if something overflows you have set it up wrong and need to fix, because as sure as eggs break when dropped there will be a blackout in the future.

A sump needs to handle this run off, if it doesn’t then the sump was wrongly/poorly/incorrectly constructed/designed. From this point you will have two choices, a bigger sump or work out how to control the amount of run off.

Craig

[BaZ]

Gino,

You’re not giving clear enough information to understand how you have set it up. You need to describe simply so the readers don't get a headache trying to understand. If it is too difficult to understand, you likely won't get the help you wanted. Take the time to ask your question so further questions do not need to be asked.

That's the best advice that you could get at this stage I think gino. I'm finding it too hard to follow how your setup works and what you want to achieve. If you can describe it clearly and maybe provide a diagram or photo you will get answers rather than just more questions